I bought a M-Audio recording bundle which included Pro Tools SE 8.0.3 with a Fast Track. It worked fine the first couple of days I had it, but randomly, every time I press the "play" button to record or playback, it says "An access violation has occurred". I've noticed a lot of people are having this problem and I would not like to see the $130 I spent go to waste. What can I do?

I was having the same access violation error problem as you described. I unistalled & reinstalled PTSE several times. The reinstall would correct the problem temporarily. For no real reason, I decided to reinstall just the patch (Pro Tools SE 8.0.3 Patch 003) while PTSE was running. The patch installation requires a reboot. Since taking this action, I haven't experienced the "Access Violation has Occurred" problem through about 6 sessions (launch and Quit PTSE). BTW, I'm using a 2008 "Early" MacBook Pro running 10.6.8 and just about the same hardware as your system. Hope this action works for you and keeps working for me!